By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A 43-year-old Alabaster man will spend the next five years in prison and must pay a $50,000 fine after he pleaded guilty to trafficking heroin in Pelham and assaulting a man in the Shelby County Jail.

Larry Page Knowles Jr., who lists an address on Simmsville Road in Alabaster, pleaded guilty to felony counts of trafficking heroin and second-degree assault during an early June hearing in front of Shelby Circuit Court Judge Dan Reeves.

Reeves originally sentenced Knowles to 20 years in prison, but split the sentence to five years in prison followed by three years of supervised probation. Knowles received 790 days of jail credit for time served in the Shelby County Jail before his plea.

Reeves also ordered Knowles, who had one prior adult felony conviction, to pay a $50,000 fine, complete a substance abuse treatment assessment and substance abuse treatment programs and ordered him to avoid contact with Angel Rubio Gonzalez.

According to his indictment, Knowles was found to be in possession of 7.8 grams of heroin during a traffic stop on Interstate 65 near the tank farm exit in Pelham on April 10, 2013. Heroin trafficking charges come when a person is found to be in possession of more than 4 grams of heroin, according to Alabama law.

While incarcerated in the Shelby County Jail Knowles also was involved in an altercation with multiple other inmates.

During the altercation, Knowles and fellow inmate Sylvester Tensy Wooley assaulted inmate Angel Rubio Gonzalez “by hitting him in the chest, breaking ribs and hitting him about his body and face with his fists.” At the time of the assaults, Gonzalez was a suspect in a 2011 fatal crash on U.S. 280.

Wooley received a 15-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to counts of first-degree assault, domestic violence and second-degree assault on March 3.